The online journal of SUCCESS

PAUL PREENSHAPE, 29, sits in a room with BEN LYNTSPRIE, 28. It’s not a cafe, not a living room, though it resembles both. LYNTSPRIE is the theater critic for a major national glossy weekly. PREENSHAPE teaches in the library science dept. of a major national glossy weekly research university in the American Southwest. They are the same person. Both men are bisexual. As the curtain rises, PAUL and BEN sit in modern chairs, facing each other. Coffee is near to hand.

PAUL: Do you know where I can get some marijuana?

BEN: You hate marijuana. Every time, you hate it. It gives you insomnia, you stay up all night, the next day you’re a wreck, “never again,” second chapter of Infinite Jest, and on and on and on and on.

PAUL: I know. That doesn’t stop me for wanting it afresh at every new stressy little self-alienated juncture. Like this afternoon.

BEN: When will it end?

PAUL: Supposedly after you turn thirty or thirty-four and have kids, you start being able to enjoy marijuana again, if you’re in the (surprisingly large) category of person who was a Linklater character in high school but then c. junior year of college stopped being able to enjoy being stoned. So I just need to have some kids and move to a smaller city in California, and I’ll be all set.

BEN: Sounds good. Have fun.

PAUL: I hope so. Thanks.

[A woman in a black jumpsuit enters the theater holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle and murders everyone onstage and in the audience except for you. You exit the theater and go eat ramen with your boyfriend’s best friend. Then you go to his house and give him a blowjob. Fun!]